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1. Situational awareness of COVID pandemic data using virtual reality

   https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2021.13.ERVR-177  

   Sharma, Sharad ; Bodempudi, Sri Teja ( March 2021 , Electronic Imaging)

   null (Ed.)

   Situational awareness provides the decision making capability to identify, process, and comprehend big data. In our approach, situational awareness is achieved by integrating and analyzing multiple aspects of data using stacked bar graphs and geographic representations of the data. We provide a data visualization tool to represent COVID pandemic data on top of the geographical information. The combination of geospatial and temporal data provides the information needed to conduct situational analysis for the COVID-19 pandemic. By providing interactivity, geographical maps can be viewed from different perspectives and offer insight into the dynamical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the fifty states in the USA. We have overlaid dynamic information on top of a geographical representation in an intuitive way for decision making. We describe how modeling and simulation of data increase situational awareness, especially when coupled with immersive virtual reality interaction. This paper presents an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment and mobile environment for data visualization using Oculus Rift head-mounted display and smartphones. This work combines neural network predictions with human-centric situational awareness and data analytics to provide accurate, timely, and scientific strategies in combatting and mitigating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Testing and evaluation of the data visualization tool have been done with real-time feed of COVID pandemic data set for immersive environment, non-immersive environment, and mobile environment. 

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2. Data Visualization Tool for Covid-19 and Crime Data

   Sean Walker and Sharad Sharma ( January 2021 , Proceeding of the IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, (CSCI'21),Symposium of Big Data and Data Science (CSCI-ISBD))

   Data visualization gives a visual context through maps or graphs and makes it easier for the human mind to identify trends, patterns, and outliers within large data sets. The understanding of patterns and location of crime through data visualization and data mining techniques approaches is a very useful tool which can help and support police forces. Identification of crime characteristics and types are the first step for developing further analysis. This paper describes the development of data visualization tool using Unity 3D and Maptitude GIS for visualization of Baltimore COVID-19 and crime data. This effort aims to determine parameters that influence the vulnerability of African Americans to COVID-19 during the pandemic. The study has found that the factors shown to be influential in a person’s susceptibility include neighborhood and physical environment, housing, occupation, education, income, and wealth gaps. The data collected from Baltimore incident reports and findings shared by Maryland SOA office shows that crime has increased and decreased in different areas during the time of COVID pandemic. 

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3. A Systematic Review of Virtual Reality Interfaces for Controlling and Interacting with Robots

   https://doi.org/10.3390/app10249051  

   Wonsick, Murphy ; Padir, Taskin ( December 2020 , Applied Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   There is a significant amount of synergy between virtual reality (VR) and the field of robotics. However, it has only been in approximately the past five years that commercial immersive VR devices have been available to developers. This new availability has led to a rapid increase in research using VR devices in the field of robotics, especially in the development of VR interfaces for operating robots. In this paper, we present a systematic review on VR interfaces for robot operation that utilize commercially available immersive VR devices. A total of 41 papers published between 2016–2020 were collected for review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Papers are discussed and categorized into five categories: (1) Visualization, which focuses on displaying data or information to operators; (2) Robot Control and Planning, which focuses on connecting human input or movement to robot movement; (3) Interaction, which focuses on the development of new interaction techniques and/or identifying best interaction practices; (4) Usability, which focuses on user experiences of VR interfaces; and (5) Infrastructure, which focuses on system architectures or software to support connecting VR and robots for interface development. Additionally, we provide future directions to continue development in VR interfaces for operating robots. 

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4. Virtual Reality: A Learning Tool for Promoting Learners’ Engagement in Engineering Technology

   Azzam, Israa ; Breidi, Farid ; Soudah, Peter. ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Engineering education aims to create a learning environment capable of developing vital engineering skill sets, preparing students to enter the workforce and succeed as future leaders. With all the rapid technological advancements, new engineering challenges continuously emerge, impeding the development of engineering skills. This insufficiency in developing the required skills resulted in high regression rates in students’ GPAs, resulting in industries reporting graduates’ unsatisfactory performance. From a pedagogical perspective, this problem is highly correlated with traditional learning methods that are inadequate for engaging students and improving their learning experience when adopted alone. Accordingly, educators have incorporated new learning methodologies to address the pre-defined problem and enhance the students’ learning experience. However, many of the currently adopted teaching methods still lack the potential to expose students to practical examples, and they are inefficient among engineering students, who tend to be active learners and prefer to use a variety of senses. To address this, our research team proposes integrating the technology of virtual reality (VR) into the laboratory work of engineering technology courses to improve the students’ learning experience and engagement. VR technology, an immersive high-tech media, was adopted to develop an interactive teaching module on hydraulic gripper designs in a VR construction-like environment. The module aims to expose engineering technology students to real-life applications by providing a more visceral experience than screen-based media through the generation of fully computer-simulated environments in which everything is digitized. This work presents the development and implementation of the VR construction lab module and the corresponding gripper designs. The virtual gripper models are developed using Oculus Virtual Reality (OVR) Metrics Tool for Unity, a Steam VR Overlay utility created to make visualizing the desktop in a VR setting simple and intuitive. The execution of the module comprises building the VR environment, designing and importing the gripper models, and creating a user-interface VR environment to visualize and interact with the model (gripper assembly/mechanism testing). Besides the visualization, manipulation, and interaction, the developed VR system allows for additional features like displaying technical information, guiding students throughout the assembly process, and other specialized options. Thus, the developed interactive VR module will serve as a perpetual mutable platform that can be readily adjusted to allow future add-ons to address future educational opportunities. 

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5. VIRD: Immersive Match Video Analysis for High-Performance Badminton Coaching

   Lin, T. ; Aouididi, A. ; Chen, Z. ; Beyer, J. ; Pfister, H. ; Wang, J. ( January 2023 , IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics)

   Badminton is a fast-paced sport that requires a strategic combination of spatial, temporal, and technical tactics. To gain a competitive edge at high-level competitions, badminton professionals frequently analyze match videos to gain insights and develop game strategies. However, the current process for analyzing matches is time-consuming and relies heavily on manual note-taking, due to the lack of automatic data collection and appropriate visualization tools. As a result, there is a gap in effectively analyzing matches and communicating insights among badminton coaches and players. This work proposes an end-to-end immersive match analysis pipeline designed in close collaboration with badminton professionals, including Olympic and national coaches and players. We present VIRD, a VR Bird (i.e., shuttle) immersive analysis tool, that supports interactive badminton game analysis in an immersive environment based on 3D reconstructed game views of the match video. We propose a top-down analytic workflow that allows users to seamlessly move from a high-level match overview to a detailed game view of individual rallies and shots, using situated 3D visualizations and video. We collect 3D spatial and dynamic shot data and player poses with computer vision models and visualize them in VR. Through immersive visualizations, coaches can interactively analyze situated spatial data (player positions, poses, and shot trajectories) with flexible viewpoints while navigating between shots and rallies effectively with embodied interaction. We evaluated the usefulness of VIRD with Olympic and national-level coaches and players in real matches. Results show that immersive analytics supports effective badminton match analysis with reduced context-switching costs and enhances spatial understanding with a high sense of presence. 

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